State Briefs 2/21/08

Friday

Feb 22, 2008 at 12:01 AMFeb 22, 2008 at 9:00 PM

State Briefs 2/21/08

Berwyn cop charged with trading info for drugs, cash

BERWYN – A Berwyn police officer has been charged with two felony counts of bribery and official misconduct after officials said he gave sensitive police information to drug dealers in exchange for cocaine and money.

Part-time police officer John Flynn, 29, of Berwyn, has been engaging in the misconduct and bribes dating back to 2005, said John Mahoney, deputy superintendent of public corruption and financial crimes for the Cook County State’s Attorneys Office.

“We were at Berwyn Police on another matter on Friday, and they said, ‘Oh, by the way, we have trouble brewing,'” Mahoney said.

Berwyn Police were tipped off to Flynn’s activities after a Lyons Police informant told officers that Flynn was running checks in police systems for license plate information, names and addresses on arrest warrants, and removing traffic tickets from the system, Mahoney said.

Mahoney approved the use of an eavesdropping device by the informant that recorded incriminating evidence against Flynn, who was arrested and charged by Saturday, Mahoney said.

While Flynn was under Berwyn police surveillance late last week, he ran a license plate and name for a warrant check at the request of the informant in exchange for $100, according to police reports.

Mahoney said the amount and sensitivity of the leaked information is unclear. He also does not know how much money or drugs Flynn received in the transactions.
Flynn faces up to seven years in prison.

According to police reports, Flynn and the informant first met in a Berwyn pizza parlor in 2004 or 2005, where the informant sold drugs at the time.

According to police reports, the informant claimed Flynn initially asked for anabolic steroids, but when the steroids were unavailable, the officer started buying 1.5 grams of cocaine every other day.

The two struck up a deal in which the informant gave Flynn the drugs for free in exchange for internal information from another community’s police department where he worked at the time, according to reports.

When Flynn started work at the Berwyn Police Department as a dispatcher, later being promoted to a part-time police officer, the two continued to trade drugs for information, reports said.

Flynn began offering to fix individuals’ parking and seat belt tickets in exchange for $50 and $25, reports said.

Police say the investigation is ongoing.

Flynn will return to county court for a preliminary hearing on March 10.

Cari Brokamp and Janice Hoppe, Suburban Life Publications

Ex-teacher pleads guilty to sexually abusing girls

BLOOMINGTON - A former teacher faces up to 70 years in prison after pleading guilty Wednesday to sexually abusing first- and second-grade girls at two schools where he taught in Normal and Urbana.

Jon White's 10 admissions of guilt in courtrooms in McLean and Champaign counties concluded an investigation of the 27-year-old that broke open just more than a year ago with accusations in Urbana that quickly spread to his previous school in Normal.
Between the two schools - Unit 5's Colene Hoose Elementary School in Normal and

Thomas Paine Elementary School in Urbana - White admitted in open court sessions to molesting 10 girls multiple times in his classrooms during lunch breaks, recesses and after-school programs.

The methods he used at each school were identical: The girls were told they were participating in a project to learn about Helen Keller, blindfolded and given what White termed a "taste test." The acts in Normal occurred between October 2004 and April 2005 and in Urbana between August 2005 and December 2006.

White resigned from Colene Hoose Elementary School at the end of the 2004-2005 school year, and McLean County Assistant State's Attorney Kim Campbell said detectives investigating the molestation accusations found White had downloaded pornography on his school computer there and forwarded it to his home.

White's plea agreement in both counties - he pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse in McLean County and eight counts in Champaign County - mandate prison time and leave open the chance that each sentence imposed could be served consecutively, rather than concurrently.

Journal Star, Peoria

Nursing home with troubled past will close

EAST PEORIA - A local nursing home with a troubled past will close when its last residents move elsewhere or May 19, whichever comes first, its owners' attorney said Wednesday.

Despite persistent rumors, though, East Peoria Gardens will not shut its doors by this weekend, said Skokie-based lawyer Meyer Magence.

"That's still not true," he said, though he acknowledged that on Tuesday he issued a two-week notice of closure, as required by contract, to the union representing most of the facility's staff.

Magence also fulfilled a state licensing requirement with his Tuesday notification to the Illinois Department of Public Health of the home's closing on the "designated" date of May 19, he said.

Last year, the department cited the facility with 23 state nursing home code violations. Some involved the April deaths of two elderly residents, one after a fall and another who choked to death on food.

Magence said he didn't know how many residents remained Wednesday at the facility, but said facility staff members have been told not to exert any pressure on remaining residents or their families or guardians to find other facilities as soon as possible.

Michael Smothers, Journal Star, Peoria

Death of woman declared to be overdose, not pit bull attack

SPRINGFIELD - The death of a 22-year-old Springfield woman who overdosed on drugs was ruled accidental by a coroner's jury Thursday.

Amber Strode was found dead Jan. 27 inside the home she shared with her boyfriend.

Authorities initially believed Strode was mauled by two adult pit bull dogs in the house; however, an autopsy revealed she died of a drug overdose and was not killed by the dogs, according to Sangamon County Coroner Susan Boone.

Strode, an Athens High School graduate, worked as a receptionist at an obstetrics and gynecology clinic at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine.

A Springfield police detective outlined for the coroner's jury the department's investigation into Strode's death, including statements from her boyfriend, who left the house about 3 a.m. the morning of Strode's death to meet another woman. He later went to a hardware store to buy a furnace filter. When he returned home to install the filter later that morning, he found Strode dead in the master bathroom.